The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest is a social commentary on the Victorian era upper class. Oscar Wilde utilizes sattire, sarcasm, repetition, and aphorism to bring across the deeper meaning of the farce. Though the characters are not decribed in depth, they clearly bring across the meaning of the work anyway. In fact, in this farce, in is almost unneccesary to go into a detailed description of any of the characters because there really is not much more to them than is described. The possey of upper class characters we meet in The Importance of Being Earnest live to better their reputations, to look down upon anyone and everyone less wealthy, less dignified, less perfect. The constant proclamations of the proper way to behave are ridiculously unimportant and appallingly insignificant to anything actually important. The entire play is a collection of trivial conversations. On the whole, we see that the adjective "Earnest" cannot be used to decribe these characters. The adjective provides great irony to the play. The most relevant connotation of the word lies in the ladies' need, for no reason whatsoever, to marry a man named Earnest.

"Cecily: I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down I should probably forget all about them"

This quote from Cecily is laughable and childish. It is a summation of her character as described in the play, though admittedly none of the characters were described in great detail. It is absurd to use the logic that you might forget wonderful secrets of life lest you write them down. If you have to write them down, then they are probably useless. Cecily makes herself look foolish, as if she is not competent enought to remember the important moments in her life. The tone of the quote is light and airy, and simultaneously gives the impression of stupidity. It emphasizes the characters' concentration on superflous information, on meaningless nonsense that they consider to be of the upmost importance. We get the impression that Cecily, and indeed all of the characters here, don't quite have their priorities straight.

I really enjoyed this play. Oscar Wilde did an excellent job of satirizing the upper class in a comical way, though clearly bringing across his message. The dialouge was absolutely hilarious, and I have recommended this book to many people, suggesting, of course, that British accents be used at all times. The complex situations that occur with the switching of identities are something I have only ever imagined to take place in soap operas. Knowing that such a situation could occur in the Victorian era makes the story that much more unique. I have never read a farace before; it was interesting to realize that a deep meaning can be found even when the charcaters described very little. I truly enjoyed this play!